With the rapid expansion of metropolitan cities and the expansive growth of population, distribution networks for utilities such as electricity, gas and water, etc., have become unprecedentedly complicated. New metering devices, such as electricity meters, are added to the distribution networks to serve new areas and/or replace obsolete metering devices, while outdated metering devices are removed from the distribution networks. Given the tremendous number of metering devices in the distribution networks and the dynamics of the distribution networks, utility service providers find it impractical, if not impossible, to determine the topologies associated with the distribution networks, i.e., which metering device is connected to which junction node (e.g., a transformer in electricity service, etc.), for example.
Furthermore, without an accurate and up-to-date knowledge of the topologies of the distribution networks, the utility service providers may overlook fraud and/or leakage that occurs in the networks, thereby incurring losses to the utility service providers.